Let’s talk about some tricks, how to work with different sounds from different sources,
during recording and editing 360 videos.
Hey guys, in one of my previous videos I showed you some tricks how to record audio with different devices.
Using certain cameras we can record audio using their built in microphones or many other external mics,
like different lavalier mics or shotgun mics, connecting with an audio cable.
In these cases our audio is synchronised in camera during shooting.
But some other cameras, like most of the consumer or even prosumer 360 models don’t have any audio input.
And in this case we have to record audio separately,
if we want to use a better microphone than the built-in mics of these devices.
And when I say better, in many cases it’s not always about the quality.
There can be some other aspects.
For instance if I want to record speech a little bit further from the camera,
it would be difficult to capture my voice with the built-in mics.
Or when I’m using a waterproof case or adventure case, the audio will be unusable.
So when I’m talking about a better microphone,
I don’t say that these camera microphones are bad or anything like this…
The points that we cannot use them in every single case. But that’s okay.
The stream is not so strong near the shore!
Okay!
And there are no such f*ing huge ships!
In most of my 360 vlogs I’ve always recorded audio on the scene with the built in mics,
because in a vlogging situation I think atmosphere is very important,
or when there are more than one people talking in a real life situation
it would be hard to pass the microphone over and over again,
so it’s fine recording audio in every direction.
Don't scare me with such sticks.
I'm always afraid that people wanna hit me.
No, no, no...
And who is the bird owner?
Is there any?
Hey, Lory, there are two geese on the back!
How did they get here?
But now, let’s talk about further situations, when I prefer recording audio separately from the camera.
When I want to record my voice from various distances, the best solution is using a lavaliere mic.
This lavalier mic can be connected to an external recorder like this
or I also like using my iPhone and the microphone of my iPhone headset.
I think it’s a nice solution. And you can learn more about this technique in my previous video.
But now let’s see some further situations when I like recording with an external recorder.
The first case is when I record something really loud.
The built in mics of these cameras have auto audio gain, and they don’t really handle hard sound pressure.
In these cases I prefer using an external recorder which can handle it, and also lets me set up the gain manually.
And in concert situations there’s another problem.
You know these 360 cameras have really wide angle lenses,
and a 360 video looks the best when you put the camera right in the middle of the action.
Or at least really close to the artists.
But it’s not the best position to record audio, so I have to record the sound from a very different spot.
And in these cases I physically separate the devices during recording 360 video and audio.
So these are the most common situations, when I have to record audio separately from the camera.
And how to go on with it? I show you some techniques.
The first and most important thing is to record with the same frequency rate.
Most of the 360 cameras record in 48kHz, so whether I use an external recorder or my phone,
I always set up 48 KHz.
That’s how I can properly synchronise them in post.
And the easiest way to do this in Premiere
is to open both the audio file and the video with the control audio track.
I put them in separate tracks.
Now the video and the audio recorded by the camera are linked,
But as you can see, I can move the other audio separately.
Now I select both files...
right click...
and I select synchronizing.
This way premiere finds the matching points and moves the files to the correct place.
It’s very important, that as a default setting,
Premiere always moves the file which starts earlier, and keeps the other one on its original position.
Now you can see, when I put the video before the audio,
after synchronizing, it moves the video in the correct place.
When I change the order, you can see the opposite process.
It’s good to know, because when you have tons of videos,
and you made a rough cut using the control audio tracks,
audio synchronizing could ruin your entire work, if you do it in the wrong way.
Let’s see, when I put the audio somewhere under the clip,
I press sync,
aaand
my timeline is a mess.
So let’s keep in mind what the correct order is.
Another issue you may observe that this syncing is not always perfect.
That’s because premiere can only move the audio track to the nearest frame,
as the frame is the smallest unit in the videos.
But in some cases this method is not accurate, because audio time units are smaller than frames.
In this case it doesn’t matter how you try, you cannot move the audio to the perfect position.
To do this, I click on the timeline panel, and select Show audio time units.
Now I can zoom in even more and move the audio tracks exactly where I want.
Now I can show you the difference
That's how I move the audio
And that's how I can move the video frame to frame
So as you can see, one frame distance is much bigger than the audio units
But now you can see the proper way to get a perfect sync
When I’m done I just simply uncheck the Show audio time units mode and continue editing.
Now my audio is perfectly synced with the control audio track.
But in some cases even the sound recorded in camera is a little bit out of sync, so the lip-sync is not perfect.
If I want the best result, I use claps to sync.
I don’t use clapper boards; I just simply clap with my hands.
I turn on Show audio time units option, so I can move the audio really smoothly.
The point is that I can see when my palms meet, and I can drag the spike on the audio exactly to that point.
So it doesn’t matter if the control audio track is a little bit out of sync, the final audio will be okay.
Of course, after all in every case I have to mute the control audio track.
Or I can mute certain audio files and link the external audio to the video.
First I unlink the video and the original audio pressing Ctrl+L
Then I mute the audio clicking on the audio track and pressing Shift+E
Then I can link the external audio to the video, selecting both of them
and pressing Ctrl+L again.
This way I can move them together
Finally I can export the video with the new audio track, or I can add music and any further sound effects.
The point is that I can keep the 360 format by clicking on VR Video option before rendering.
So this way YouTube and Facebook will recognize the clip as a 360 video.
So briefly that’s all about recording audio separately and syncing perfectly with the video.
I thought it would be useful to share with you after my latest episode about sound recording.
So I hope you like it.
And if you do, please thumbs up,
and for further 360 contents and tutorials, subscribe to my YouTube channel.
See you soon guys!